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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28337586">All the noises and the apathy the wheel's got a puncture, belief in a modern alchemy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/pseuds/cutebutpsyco'>cutebutpsyco</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Protective Avengers, mentions of domestic abuse, potential angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:07:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,121</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28337586</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/pseuds/cutebutpsyco</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“What happened?” He asked, and while there was a bit of concern in his voice, the tone that struck Tony better was an annoyance. It wasn’t anything weird either, though, quite the opposite. </i>
</p><p>  <i>“I was working in the lab and something very heavy hit my face,” He said, trying for a playful tone that he knew would have hit home. It did and every concern disaèèear from Stephen’s face.</i></p><p>  <i>“The realization that I’m better than you?” He snarked back.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tony Stark &amp; The Avengers, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All the noises and the apathy the wheel's got a puncture, belief in a modern alchemy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/atypicalsnowman/gifts">atypicalsnowman</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I want to thank so much atypcal-snowman on Tumblr for their amazing prompt: <i>What we talked about on tumblr! Tony is hurt with cuts and bruises in workshop. Avengers suspect Stephen. Can be humorous or angsty.</i></p><p>This inspired me a lot and I found myself writing and entire fic in a couple of days, a thing that didn't happen in a long, long time.<br/>Anyway, mentions of domestic abuse (or better supposed domestic abuse) and potential angst but it has a happy ending.</p><p>Nothing belongs to me, and this hasn't been betaread, title from Hymn 21 by Colouring.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The lab was always a sort of safe port, didn’t matter from what or whom Tony was trying to run away. This time, it was yet another businessman who decided that Stark Industries stocks weren’t getting up as fast as they used to in the past and that it was because Tony had turned more into a celebrity instead of doing his job. He rolled his eyes at the ceiling with the ease of someone who’s been on the front page of every gossip magazine since the age of twenty-one.<br/>
The only difference was that by now he decided to drop the nicety and start to speak his own mind about stuff which, usually, he tried to avoid. Which weren’t a lot in the first place, but still. People loved him even more than they did when he announced to be Iron Man and all his charities were benefiting from that. Who cared about stocks, stockholders asides?</p><p>With that thought in mind, he pretended to receive a distress call from Nick Fury and left the meeting to gain his way to the elevator and, finally, the safety of his own lab. Where he was currently having the time of his life rediscovering the pleasure of working on hard machinery, namely a certain Lamborghini which belonged to a certain Doctor of his knowledge. He had no idea how someone managed to save it from the crash, but a person did that much, and the fact that belonged to someone who shortly after that very same crash became a superhero started to tickle that person’s interest in making money out of the car. Tony found it on some luxury auction he was following for some reason which he still didn’t remember. If he only were the man to believe in fate or destiny, he would have thought that it was because of the goddess Fortune, but he didn't and just seized the opportunity without further questions about the how and why.</p><p>Whoever sold the car, had it fixed so that it didn’t look like it didn’t survive a crash which could have ended a man’s life - and ended his career - but the electronic was so primitive and rudimental that Tony decided that he would have fixed and improved it before even trying to bring the argument up with Stephen. Now, the genius’s final aim was to have his boyfriend to rediscover the happiness of driving, but he knew that was going to be a super long journey and, for now, the car was just going to be a pretty piece of the collection in the garage of his, or better, theirs, new Malibu house. Another little gift for Mr Magic he didn’t know a thing about. But he would have, sooner than later, just once everything was perfect and ready.</p><p>Tony smiled at the thought. Stephen deserved the entire world, and he was more than keen to give it to him. It was weird and completely new how the two of them could get so well along together, to be so similar and yet so different that they mixed wonderfully. If only the others would have seen that much. Not that he cared about the opinions people might have on him or his relationship, but it was nice, every now and then, to be able to go out with the entire team and Stephen and not just choose one of them.<br/>
It wasn’t even like they didn’t get along: Stephen and Bruce grew close rather rapidly, Thor was quite friendly with him - not that Tony doubted the Asgardian to befriend with anyone - and soon the genius discovered the two of them met briefly some years before, Natasha was weary, but Tony caught the two of them speak during the last Christmas party, and even Loki was himself in a positive way around him. Not to mention Peter who positively adored the Sorcerer. Nobody seemed to actually be negative toward Tony’s boyfriend, but the fact that Strange wasn’t the friendlier person in the world seemed to push away most of Tony’s teammates.</p><p>He hoped they could soon see the giant cupcake that Stephen really was under the cold façade of the Supreme Sorcerer. A façade which, somehow, Stephen could keep despite being the most messed up mess in the entire multiverse. Once again, Tony knew that he was smiling like an idiot simply thinking about his boyfriend and despite how childish or corny that might seem, it was a pleasant change of the subject and not something Stark wanted to give up on so easily.</p><p>He closed his eyes just a moment before running the simulation of the AI he was planning to install on Stephen’s car. Once Friday confirmed to him that everything was ok and he could install the AI casing inside of the car he got up from the chair he was seated on and slid under the car, a screwdriver secured in his mouth and his head nested on the jacked he had worn during the meeting just finished. He had no idea how long he spent down there, moving around wires and welding wires, somehow finding calming and comforting the smell of melting tin and grease. He had robots created just for that, not Dum-E, maybe, who was happily running around the lab, but he created other ones, without an AI inside of them, which were supposed to do the heavy work that Tony always ended up doing himself. He couldn’t tell exactly why, but maybe it was because sometimes he just needed to reconnect with his origins, something that robots couldn’t do for him.</p><p>He was so absorbed in his work that he didn't notice that his phone went on until he could feel an annoying buzz against his leg and, a moment later, three things happened at the same time. Friday told him that the call was from the New York Police Department, which usually meant that the Avengers were needed in action, so Tony slid up from under the car to take it and let go of the AI housing which, he was sure, had already been fixed to the rest of the engine components. Except that it wasn’t and the moment he let it go the heavy, metallic square box with very sharp corners fell right on his face and he couldn’t help but yell: “Shit, shit, shit!”</p><p>It was a stupid mistake, something that he had known for ages to the point that it was so radicated inside of him that he started doing it mechanically until he didn’t. Somehow, he managed to gain the seating position away from the car and then a standing one. The point where the metallic box clashed with his face was burning and he could see a rivulet of red with his peripheral running beside his right eye. His nose hurt too and while there was nothing more he wanted to do than touching his face to assert every damage he made, he knew he first had to wash his hands, which meant crossing the hallway from the lab to the bathroom at the end of it, hoping nobody would see him. At least, Friday pitied him and his phone stopped to buzz.</p><p>Deciding that it was a sign of good luck, he dared to cross the hallway thinking it was highly unlikely for anybody to be down there without Tony knowing it. Only when he was in front of a mirror, hands clean from grease and motor oil, he dared to look at the disaster that his face very likely was. The sharp edge of one of the corners hit his forehead, just above his eyebrow, leaving behind a bleeding cut; a smaller one crossed his upper lip making it appear as if he bit too hard into it and he could see at least three different red spots on his face which looked very much like the prequel of a bruise. Thanking Rhodey who forced him into keeping a first aid kit in each bathroom in the Tower, the Compound and his house in Malibu, he tried to do what he could to minimize the mess on his face. He knew he couldn’t work miracles, but, at least, fixing a bit of his swollen lip and applying some ice on the upcoming bruises would have worked.</p><p>After fifteen minutes of having done what he could, Tony looked once again in the mirror just to realize that the red spots were now turning purple and there wasn’t a lot he could do about them. He rolled his eyes at the ceiling and got ready to bear with whatever annoying tantrum Stephen was surely going to throw at him about paying attention when he was in the lab. Not that Tony didn’t agree with his boyfriend and didn’t repeat himself the same discourse every time the Sorcerer was the one coming back battered from either another dimension or a sparring session in Kamar-Taj, but still, being on the receiving end of one of those wasn’t as funny and entertaining as being the responsible one in the relationship.</p><p>“Boss,” Friday’s voice reached him a moment later and Tony would have jumped if only he wasn’t used, by now. He quite enjoyed when people who didn't know about the AI were completely caught off guard by her voice just as much as he enjoyed seeing people react to their first encounter with the Cloak. Waiting for her to continue, he splashed his face with cold water, hoping it could do the impossible magic of making his face look better. “Mr Rogers set a reminder for you: the meeting with the Avengers is starting in two minutes.”</p><p>Yeah, great, another meeting of which he completely forgot about. At least this one didn’t imply having to contain himself from yelling at people that they were stupid. Not because they weren’t, but because he could tell his teammates that much, usually just for the entertainment of the majority of others. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, checked Google news just to be sure that the phone call wasn’t about an alien invasion and with a huff left the safety of the bathroom and went back into the lift.</p><p>--</p><p>At least, the moment the doors opened on the floor which was filled with meeting rooms just for the Avengers to occupy, he was greeted with two of the best views ever created: Stephen Strange, for once in loose casual clothes, holding a delicious-smelling cup of coffee. Sure, the doctor was sipping at it and despite not being even so close Stark could smell caramel and cinnamon - which he would have loved, in a doughnut though, not spoiling amazing brain juice - but it was coffee so he stole it from his boyfriend’s hand without even saying hello to him.</p><p>Not that he would have had the time anyway: the moment Stephen saw him, his eyes immediately went on Tony’s face, taking in the cuts and the forming bruises adorning his face and Tony could feel, because he was too busy on his quite-not-his coffee to really look at Stephen, the frown that formed on the Sorcerer’s forehead.</p><p>“What happened?” He asked, and while there was a bit of concern in his voice, the tone that struck Tony better was an annoyance. It wasn’t anything weird either, though, quite the opposite. After some incident on the battlefield, they both realized that being concerned or worried about the other’s health was just a waste of time, the only exceptions being if they were unconscious or hit their heads. They tended to just dive headfirst into the fight and sometimes things like cuts and bruises or minor injuries happened. The real problem was when they didn’t pay attention and behaved recklessly. So yeah, Tony knew that he deserved that.</p><p>“I was working in the lab and something very heavy hit my face,” He said, trying for a playful tone that he knew would have hit home. It did and every concern disaèèear from Stephen’s face.</p><p>“The realization that I’m better than you?” He snarked back, and well, Tony had to admit that it was a pretty good remark so decided to let the wizard win even because he saw T’Challa walking inside one of the meeting rooms and that very likely meant that they were both late. He took Stephen’s hand and kissed briefly his boyfriend before starting to drag him toward the meeting room.</p><p>“I’ve always known that I lucked out meeting you, handsome,” He answered, instead, thinking about how weird it was how the Sorcerer completely melted the moment the two of them were alone. It was even weirder seeing him going back all business and no games once they walked inside a room filled with the rest of the Avengers. His relaxed pose and easy smile went all stiff and severe as he let his steel-blue eyes run on the people in front of them. But what really surprised Tony was the glance of utter worry that painted Natasha’s jade eyes.</p><p>She was seated on one of the chairs that faced the door of the meeting room, her legs rested against the sleek black table in front of her, flame-red hair tied in a braid resting against one of her shoulders. It was one of those days when she didn’t look like a dangerous assassin at all, but the moment Tony walked inside of the room everything in her switched back at “hundred ways to snap your neck without even breaking a nail”. Tony raised an eyebrow at her, a questioning glance in his whiskey brown eyes.</p><p>Even if less evident, Bucky, seated by her side, shifted his attention from the conversation he was having with Sam and looked at the couple which just entered. “What happened?” He asked, looking at Tony who couldn’t help but notice a certain hostility in his voice. A hostility which Tony couldn’t really understand.</p><p>“Lab incident,” He answered, smiling at them and resisting the urge to facepalm at his own stupidity only because he knew it wouldn’t have done anything but increase the burning pain which was still coming from his cut. “I’m ok, guys.”</p><p>He looked at them, once again a smile on his lips before letting himself fall against one of the chairs. And yet, he could feel against his skin that everyone's eyes went to Stephen who was still standing there, almost blocking the threshold inside of the room. It was weird as if someone threw a heavy blanket over the room in the middle of the summer afternoon. It was an unpleasant sensation coming out of the blue and Tony couldn’t really understand why or what happened. Everyone was looking at Stephen as if he did something wrong. He knew they didn’t know him well enough, but this, this was completely new. He shook his head, not completely understanding which was the reason for that change in the mood in the room and then focused on Steve. His cerulean eyes held the same light he saw in Nat and Bucky’s and his fist were clenched around the border of the table.</p><p>Tony turned to look at the other people in the room, but he could see how everyone was looking at Stephen, still imperturbable. Stark had no idea if his boyfriend realized that the other Avengers were glaring at him and decided to ignore it or if it was something that happened every time and he just realized that now. Whatever the answer was, it was extremely unsettling for Tony who decided that was about time to change the subject. “So, what is this meeting about?”</p><p>--</p><p>If a meeting could have been more boring than the one he was forced to sit through, well, Tony didn’t want to know. Apparently, the reason why Steve called them all was because of some problem with their jurisdiction that the White House wanted the Avengers to figure out for them or something. Not that Stark was paying attention or was giving two shits about. It was Steve the person who kept track of that, so the only thing he could do was to sit through the meeting and just study his teammates in the meanwhile.</p><p>It didn’t take long for him to realize that probably the only person who was paying attention was T’Challa, very likely because he was a king and so maybe he had something to say about that and not because he was really thrilled by the perspective of whatever the Captain was saying. Most of the others were just throwing daggers with their eyes at Stephen, the only exceptions being Rhodey, Carol and Bruce. Rhodey was texting with someone, trying to hide his phone under the table-turning to look at Stephen who was doing the same thing suggested that his best friend and his boyfriend were very likely speaking over text messages - Carol, her head rested against James’s shoulder, was this close to falling asleep and Bruce was writing rapid notes on his tablet. Tony liked to think that Steve thought Bruce was actually taking notes about the meeting, just to make Rogers appear a fool to his eyes.</p><p>He had no idea how long the meeting lasted, but once it was over everyone started to storm through the door as if daring that Steve could go on and on forever if they didn’t leave rapidly enough. Stephen smiled down at him before telling him that he needed to go to Kamar-Taj to do some research and with a soft kiss he left walking through a portal. Tony wasn’t extremely thrilled about it, hoping they could spend some time together considering that for once they didn’t need to run on a mission or something, but, on the other hand, it meant that he had more time to work on the car. Which was what he was intended to do if only he didn’t feel Nat’s small and strong hand on his arm the moment he tried to move for the door.</p><p>“I was hoping we could speak,” She said, in a tone which didn’t allow any reply which wasn’t the one the Black Widow was looking for. Feeling himself cornered, Tony couldn’t do anything but nod and move once again toward the door.</p><p>“Yeah,” He answered. “Sure, we can go upstairs and talk over a drink.”</p><p>“Do you mind if I join?” Bucky asked, once again sounding like someone who wouldn’t accept a no as an answer. That was weird but, once again, everything seemed to be weird with his teammates today so it wasn’t like he put too much of his mind into it and shrugged off the feeling, just starting to walk down the hallway toward the lift to the penthouse. It wasn’t the first time he was there with the two assassins, but this time, once again, there was something weird. He could feel Bucky’s icy eyes on him every movement he made, a thing that only made him more conscious about how he was moving around, a feeling he never liked and reminded him of his father, and while Nat wasn’t so insistent, there was something wary about the way she moved around the penthouse, as if she was looking for something but didn’t want for Tony to understand that.</p><p>“So,” He asked after a while, placing three glasses of whiskey on the counter of the bar and waiting for his two teammates to just join him. “What do you want to speak about?”</p><p>The two of them shared a rapid glance and then it was Natasha who spoke, her eyes fixed for half a second on the golden liquid inside of the glass she was holding. She took a sip from it and then started to talk: “Do you know that this is a safe space, right? We are your teammates and we will do whatever is in our power to be sure that you are ok.”</p><p>Tony waisted an eyebrow, another person who held more grounds would have made a smart remark about how the two of them were the people who stabbed him in the back and left him dying in a bunker in Siberia, but that was in the past, so he just took a sip from his whiskey and stared at Natasha, his eyes going a moment later on Bucky as if looking on his face for an answer for his unspoken question.</p><p>“I guess,” He answered to the spy. “But I don’t really understand what all of this is about.”</p><p>“What happened to your face?” Bucky asked, always the one to be blunt about things. “And not the lab incident crap.”</p><p>Confusion streamed through Tony’s mind for half a second, before he realized what he was implying. He felt his jaw opening in surprise while he lowered his glass once again against the counter. He knew what that simple gesture might appear from the outside, so he shook his head rapidly. Once again, there was a shifting in Natasha’s eyes, the soft jade turned into steel flushing under cold lights. Despite her wearing a charcoal grey cardigan over a pair of soft trousers she looked like she could kill whoever crossed her path just as much as she could in her combat gear. He wondered if she kept any weapon hidden on her, but then decided that it was better to not to think about that when she was meditating on killing his boyfriend.</p><p>“Guys, I appreciate it, but it’s really what happened. I was working on a car, I thought I secured a part of the engine I was working on, and I didn’t. When I moved it fell and hit me in the face,” He said, trying not to laugh at his own stupidity. Telling the story was even worse than living it if he had to be honest. And he really hoped they could understand how much it was costing to him to tell that truth instead of inventing some rocambolesque lie. He would have, if only they wouldn’t have thought that Stephen did that to him. How they could even…? Yes, maybe the rapports between the Sorcerer Supreme and the other Avengers weren’t the best, but how could his teammates think that Stephen would have ever even raised a hand on him? Couldn’t they see how happy he was with his boyfriend? “Wait, how many of you think this is because of Stephen?”</p><p>He really needed to know, or, better, he didn’t, but he had to because he saw how everyone was looking at Stephen the moment they walked into the meeting room and now it all started to make sense. And he hated it, not because he didn’t like the idea of the people around him caring about Tony, but hated that they came to the conclusion that Stephen could be abusive with him. When Stephen was the sweetest and most caring person he has ever met. It was crazy, and it didn’t make any sense at all.</p><p>“He’s always,” Bucky started before pushing his back up stifle in what, Tony realized a moment later, was a terrible imitation of the Sorcerer. “So cold and distant, and we don’t really…”</p><p>“We don’t think he’s the angel you want to make him appear. I spoke with him, he seems fine, but then things happen,” Natasha interrupted the Winter Soldier, differently from him, she didn’t seem convinced at all about the billionaire’s words. He didn’t expect that much, not from the spy. “And I know how nice even the worst people can appear. So, just know that we are here for you. All of us.”</p><p>Something told Stark that all of us was the answer to his question. All the Avengers thought that what happened to his face was because of Stephen. He clenched his jaw and looked up at her. He wanted so much to say something that would have hurt her so that she could shut up, but he also understood that her concern was real and honest so he nodded. “If Stephen would ever hurt me, I swear to god you two will be the first people I’d look for. Now could you please let me go to finish the work which caused this terrific conversation to happen?”</p><p>He took his glass and stepped toward the lift feeling Natasha and Bucky’s eyes on his back. He pretended he didn’t notice them and only once the doors of the lift were closed behind him he emptied the glass. The burning taste of whiskey helped a bit to clear the fog in his mind while he turned to look at his reflection in the mirror. He looked awful, even worse than he did when the AI casing fell on his face. The bruises turned darker and the cut on his lip was now burning even more because of the alcohol. And yet, what was hurting him, even more, was the idea of his teammates not trusting him. If on one side it was nice thinking about the fact that they were worried about him, on the other it was just fucking frustrating.</p><p>When the doors of the lift opened once again, he was ready to hole up in his laboratory and almost ran out of it, wanting to just disappear forever or, at least, for the next ten hours or so. What it didn’t expect, though, was for the lift to open on the lobby floor where he pretty much walked into Steve’s chest. The soldier was with Sam, Wanda and Carol and the moment he realized who hit him he took a step back, his hands going on Tony’s shoulders as if he was trying to balance him back on his feet or was handling something extremely fragile. “Sorry,” He said, “I didn’t mean… I didn’t want to startle you.”</p><p>And, somehow, that was, for Tony, the end of it. He raised his eyes on the perfect Ken-like face of Rogers and had to resist the impulse to throw a fist at him out of frustration. He couldn’t understand why or when it started, but now little things he saw since he introduced Stephen as his boyfriend to the rest of the Avengers - well, more than introducing him, they started to walk on Stephen and Tony being extremely intimate since shortly after the defeat of Thanos - were starting to fall in place. And he didn’t like at all the image they were composing.<br/>
He hoped, at least, that Carol was by his and Stephen’s side if there was a side to take at all. The two of them spent entire nights playing the stupidest PlayStation games with Stephen and Rhodey on top of extremely embarrassing - at least for Tony - restaurant dates where Rhodey proceeded to tell about Tony’s teenage years at MIT. There was no way Carol could think Stephen was violent with him.</p><p>“Yeah,” He answered, ironically. “You need to be sorry because I walked out of the lift and hit you, it’s totally your fault. Now, I just say through an entire meeting with Nat and Bucky telling me how safe I should feel in my own house and I guess asking you is pointless because I already know the answer but I have to: do you think this - he indicated the mess on his face - is Stephen’s doing?”</p><p>His eyes were fixed on Steve, but he could see Sam lowering his glance to the floor just before Carol moved from the group as if taking her place by Tony’s side. “No,” She said, without hesitation. “I know him, and he would never hurt anyone, especially not Tony.”</p><p>That was sort of comforting, but it was the silence coming from the others that told tons about what they thought. And so he rolled his eyes at the ceiling and then, without looking at anyone in particular, said: “Friday, can you please call everyone up in the penthouse?”</p><p>--</p><p>He knew that they were going to laugh for the rest of their lives, probably, but he needed to do this. Once again, it was comforting to see that the Avengers felt the need to protect him, but he didn’t want for them to have such a bad idea of Stephen who was trying, really trying to be more social and nice around Tony’s teammates and he knew that most of it were just out of his boyfriend’s sake. It wasn’t fair how the others were repaying him.</p><p>So he waited until everyone but Stephen himself, who was still in Kamar Taj, and T’Challa, who left the Compound shortly after the end of the meeting because he had to meet with Ross, was up in the main room of his penthouse and then let himself fall against one of the leather couches, feeling everybody’s eyes on him.</p><p>“I happened to know that you all think Stephen is not the right person for me and you might have thought that he is the reason behind the bruises on my face. So, yeah, I feel like you won’t believe me, doesn’t matter how many times I tell you it was a lab incident. Luckily, I can show you all what really happened, Fri?”</p><p>A moment later, the TV turned on and the video from the lab started to play. Looking at it from the outside was even worse, if only because it pointed out that he could have just asked Friday to pick up the phone and he would have spared himself the entire unpleasantly of the afternoon but, on the other hand, he was sort of happy for it because the argument came up, one way or the other.<br/>
Once the footage ended to play he turned to look at the faces of his teammates and couldn’t help but notice that most of them were trying not to laugh. He raised an eyebrow, eyes fixed on Natasha who’s pose has never been more relaxed. She leaned over the back of the sofa to rest her head on Tony’s shoulder.</p><p>“I guess you really love him if you are ready to show us this,” She said, in a whisper, and Tony knew what she really meant. Probably Stephen got a green light for that one, but she wasn’t ready to let her wards fall around him, not yet. He knew it wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but it was close enough and a good starting point.</p><p>And if Stephen said that he would have spanked Tony that night just to prove him how the Avengers were right about him, once Stark told him what happened, well, that was the spanking he liked and one his teammates didn’t need to know about.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>As always, kudos and comments are appreciated!</p><p><b>wanna say hi?</b> come on tumblr <a href="http://myrxellabaratheon.tumblr.com/">@myrxellabaratheon</a> and <a href="http://ironstrange-is-the-endgame.tumblr.com/">@ironstrange-is-the-endgame</a><br/><b>do you want a fic written by me?</b> Click on my Ironstrange Tumblr and follow the instructions in the pinned post.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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